This is a proposal to analyze data, collected in the Institute for Social Research 1972 and 1976 national election studies, of the extensiveness and functions of adults' identifications with major demographic categories in American life. The proposed analyses address two major issues: 1) the mental health implications of group identification, particularly for feelings of efficacy rather than powerlessness, and 2) the growth of group consciousness from group identification. The analyses focus on three sets of demographic categories with which Americans may identify and which may represent three types of group consciousness: 1) blacks and whites (race consciousness), 2) women (sex consciousness), and 3) businessmen, middle class, workingmen, and the poor (class consciousness). Since identical questions were asked of respondents who most closely identified with each of these categories, the proposed research will provide a comparative framework for three possible social movements, at potentially different stages of development, that typically have been studied in isolation. The combination of both a cross-sectional and panel design make these data nearly unique for unravelling causal dynamics between group identification and alienation, and in studying the development of group consciousness. The proposal also requests support to interview intensively 30 women, blacks and workingmen whose individual changes from 1972 to 1976 represent the following types of shifts: 1) defectors (the strongly identified and group conscious in 1972 who are less so in 1976), 2) mobilized (the only weakly conscious in 1972 who have moved to a higher stage of consciousness in 1976), and 3) new recruits (those not identified in 1972 who are in 1976).